


like a vision from the old west wind

by its_tortle



Category: Gifted (Movie 2017), Political Animals
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Evanstan - Freeform, Fluff, Hospitals, I just love them, M/M, Mary Ships It, Meet-Cute, Sort Of, Strangers to Lovers, frank is starstruck, no beta we die like women, tj is sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24233893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_tortle/pseuds/its_tortle
Summary: He emerges from the pack just in time to hear Mary ask President Hammond about the goddamn Chinese submarine off the West Coast and why President Garcetti’s administration is refusing to take action to save the crew members even if it’s in the state’s best interests. And look, he really loves Mary, but right then he thinks he might strangle her.ORThe one in which TJ is being released from the hospital while Mary and Frank await another birth announcement.
Relationships: Frank Adler/Thomas "T. J." Hammond
Comments: 26
Kudos: 74





	like a vision from the old west wind

**Author's Note:**

> hey babygirls,
> 
> this idea came upon me suddenly and vividly due to this [this gif set](https://riricitaa.tumblr.com/post/618303611009630208/frank-why-are-the-president-and-his-son-here) and i just had to write it down. 
> 
> this quasi-au requires that frank and mary live further north, in the dc area, and that frank's relationship with bonnie is promptly ignored. they make a wonderful movie couple (also a cute one in real life, honestly), but its to be ignored for the sake of this fic.
> 
> (the title is taken from maggie rogers' [love you for a long time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKYxMnW7bgs) , which just had the lovely trope of feeling the potential of a relationship upon first meeting. i strongly recommend it, obviously. :)
> 
> i sincerely hope you enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it.

Against his better judgement, Frank had let Mary talk him into staying for a fourth birth announcement, and now it’s already getting light outside. The last two deliveries had been only twenty minutes apart, so he figured that they could easily wait for another, but it had now been almost an hour of waiting and the doors to the delivery rooms remained stubbornly closed. 

Roberta had made it clear that she was more than ready to leave, but Mary had persisted and Frank had caved. It’s not everyday a girl finds out how big a piece of shit her dad is, afterall. He has to cheer her up as long as he can.

They’re sat in a row now, Mary in the middle. Roberta is sitting upright, but her eyes are closed and her even breaths betray that she is asleep. Mary is going through a burst of energy and is wide awake, leaving Frank no opportunity to rest even though he’s exhausted. He should’ve put his foot down.

“Frank?”, Mary asks him for the seemingly hundredth time. 

He just hums, eyes still closed.

“Why are there so many cameras outside?”

Frank opens his eyes at this and follows Mary’s gaze with a confused frown. There are indeed cameras outside, ten at least, with a few news trucks and reporters in a loud bustle. The security guard outside the hospital is trying to get them to stay off the path, but seems to be struggling.

“I have no idea,” he confesses. “But I’m sure glad we didn’t park out front.”

Mary doesn’t look away from the commotion, a thoughtful frown on her young face. “Are they legally allowed to gather in front of a hospital like that? Like, isn’t a hospital visit a private thing?”

Frank usually admires his niece’s curiosity and intelligence, but he usually gets at least six hours of sleep and he’s running on about thirty minutes right now. “You’d think,” he simply answers. He hopes she’ll drop it.

She doesn’t. “There has to be someone famous here then, right? But how would they have gotten the information that there is, anyway?”

“They have their ways,” he sighs. His eyes droop closed again, lids heavy with fatigue.

“It seems like a breach of privacy.”

Frank deliberately doesn’t respond. 

Mary thankfully takes the hint and is silent for a few minutes then and Frank feels himself relax into a resting state, only vaguely aware of what’s going on around him. He’ll have to call Mr. Peterson later and let him know that he won’t be able to tend to the yacht until the afternoon.

Just when he’s about to slip into a much needed sleep, Mary elbows him lightly. “Frank?”

He squares his jaw in order to resist his urge to curse at his niece and hums instead.

“Why are President Hammond and his son here?”

It takes a moment for the words to register in his sleep-ogled brain, but when they do his eyes shoot open. And there, in front of the reception desk, close to the doors with the media circus, are two men that are undeniably Bud and TJ Hammond. 

“Well, I guess that explains the cameras,” he answers dumbly. 

His eyes remain involuntarily glued to the pair, even though he knows that he’s being rude by staring. It’s just that that’s _Bud and TJ Hammond_ , the former President and his son. And while he’s surely starstruck by seeing the 42nd President of the United States -- whom he likes reasonably well, except for the affairs --, he’s also inexplicably unable to tear his eyes from TJ. TJ just so happens to have been the bane of Frank’s bisexual awakening at sixteen, with his wide smile and his broad shoulders and his steel-blue eyes, and he’s even more gorgeous in person, if that’s possible, even from where Frank is at least thirty yards away from him. He looks a little worn down, definitely not at his prime, but he still holds himself with an amicable grace and exudes a magnetic energy. Frank feels like the room has shifted.

Mary’s question is valid, why _are_ they here? He has a terrifying suspicion that he doesn’t dare explore, but he can’t help but wonder if it has anything to do with TJ’s sadly quite public problems with addiction. Tuesday had even brought about the national news that TJ had been admitted for a suicide attempt back in December, which had shaken Frank up for most of the week. He doesn’t do well with suicide, attempted or successful, and tries his damndest never to think about it.

But, _god_ , how could such a beautiful creature ever doubt its belonging in the world?

“Frank, stop staring. It’s creepy.”

He manages to tear his eyes away from TJ, if only to give his niece an annoyed look. She just smiles at him like she knows about his crush. _Former_ crush, that is.

She looks away from Frank and back at the President and his son, and her expression morphs into a curious and determined one. Oh god. He knows that look.

“Mary,” he starts with a warning tone, but then suddenly she’s sprung from her seat and is six feet away from him.

He jumps to his feet. “Mary!”

He follows her in long strides, but then suddenly a door opens ahead and a gaggle of nurses and doctors exit into the hall, returning from a probable meeting or lunch break, and Frank struggles to wind his way through the group of slow walkers.

He emerges from the pack just in time to hear Mary ask President Hammond about the goddamn Chinese submarine off the West Coast and why President Garcetti’s administration is refusing to take action to save the crew members even if it’s in the state’s best interests. And look, he really loves Mary, but right then he thinks he might strangle her.

“Mary,” he exclaims, rushing up to where she had Bud’s _and_ TJ’s attention. “What the hell, kid?”

He pulls her to him with an expression somewhere between angry and embarrassed and straightens to look the former president, who looks a bit shell-shocked, in the eye. “I’m so so sorry, President Hammond. That was a wildly inappropriate question in an even more inappropriate setting and I take full blame-”

He’s cut off by a laugh from TJ, who had deliberately avoided looking directly at. “Oh, please,” the young man chuckles. “I’d pay to see that expression on my dad’s face anytime, so really, I should be thanking you.”

Frank looks over at him and then just stares with an absolutely dumbfounded expression. He knows he must look like an idiot, but _Jesus fucking Christ_ , no one should be allowed to look that good. Ever. Especially not coming out of a hospital at five am on a Saturday morning.

Bud Hammond’s brain goes back online before his does and he joins TJ’s laugh, though it sounds far more forced than his son’s. “Oh, yes. It’s fine, really. I know kids can be a handful.” 

“But then again,” TJ quips, “That’s not a usual kid question.” He crouches a bit to look Mary in the eye. “Are you looking for a job on Capitol Hill? We could use someone like you around, honestly.” 

He’s looking at Mary with a warm and playful expression and wow, this is so far from what Frank thought his night was going to be like.

“Thank you,” Mary answers with a proud set to her small shoulders. “But I’m going to be a mathematician.”

A grin forms on TJ’s face. ( _Fuck._ )

“Well, the offer stands.” TJ straightens then, which Frank’s brain seems to finally take as its cue to cooperate with his mouth. 

“I’m still sorry,” he explains a little less hectically. “She’s very determined when she sets her mind to something and also apparently faster than me.”

He feels a little wrongfooted and definitely awkward, but the unpleasant feeling discipates when he catches TJ’s warmly amused expression.

TJ surveys him for a long moment, and under his gaze, Frank feels increasingly aware of his wrinkled old shirt and his product-less hair and his definitely visible sleep deprivation. He looks far from his best, and there’s a stupid, hopeless part of him that wishes he looked better so that he could charm TJ (like he could ever).

“She’s extraordinarily smart, though, your daughter,” TJ remarks after a moment.

Frank smiles. “Yeah, I know,” he sighs. And then, though he never corrects anyone on the assumption, he adds “But, uh, she’s my niece, actually.”

_What the hell, Adler?_

TJ’s lips quirk up and his eyes assume a set that Frank would assume was flirty if it was anyone else’s eyes, and if he was anywhere, anytime, else. He refuses to read into it.

“TJ,” the younger man says then, stretching out his hand for Frank to shake. The fact that he thinks he needs to be introduced is laughable, but it makes Frank feel just a bit more normal.

He takes the hand, and tries to ignore the warm, soft skin and the way it makes his heart race. He gives it a good-natured shake. “Frank. Frank Adler.”

Suddenly remembering that they’re not alone, he lets go of the hand and motions to his left. “This is Mary.”

TJ shakes her hand too, because of course he’s sweet like that. “It’s good to meet you.”

“Yes it is, but we really must be going,” Bud interrupts with his campaign smile. He doesn’t quite sound sincere, but it's warm enough to pass -- Frank reccons he’s had some practice. “Thomas?”, he beckons, turning to the door.

TJ looks from his father back to Frank with a heavy smile. He looks to be pondering something, but then simply lightens his smile a bit and turns to follow his father through the glass doors and into the media madness.

Frank feels deflated, and he doesn’t even really know why. He just fucking met TJ Hammond, his teenage infatuatuation, who was just as charming and gorgeous and friendly as Frank had hoped he’d be. So, there’s absolutely no reason to be dissapointed.

And yet, he feels like he’s being forced to put down an incredible novel he’d only just read a sentence of. It feels like a tragic loss.

He shakes his head at his own big, stupid feelings and turns to Mary. While the interaction may have been altogether pleasant, wonderful, even, Mary’s question was entirely inappropriate and he’s not just letting her off the hook. 

Frank opens his mouth to scold her, but then he sees TJ turn suddenly in the middle of the doorway in the corner of his eye and come over to them. He straightens again, eyes wide.

TJ looks a little frantic and there’s a nervous glint in his eyes, but he’s wearing a smile that Frank feels in his chest from the inside out. “This is really strange,” he begins, “and you’re totally welcome to turn me down, but could I perchance have your number?”

“What?”, Frank asks dumbly. He can feel Mary freeze beside him.

“I just-” TJ stops and seems to be searching for the right words as he runs a hand through his hair. “I can’t bear the thought of never seeing you again. Which I realize is weird, but I just- Yeah.” He cuts himself off a little helplessly and makes no move to continue.

Frank feels all the tension flood out of his body as he musters the gorgeous, vulnerable face looking up at him with a hopeful expression. Sharp cheekbones, full lips, stormy eyes. He breathes out a smile and just stares for a moment. TJ lets him.

He lets himself feel it now, the energy pulled taut around them, simmering and sparkling with endless opportunity. It’s like he’s gotten that incredible novel back, only to find himself staring at hundreds of blank pages with a pen in his hand. He wasn’t making it up, that stupid mourning feeling.

“Give me your phone,” he says finally, his gaze unwavering. He says it softly so as to not break the air around them, though it frankly doesn't seem likely to dissipate

TJ breaks out in a grin that looks like everything Frank’s ever wanted and smoothly takes his phone out of an inside pocket in the lining of his jacket. He hands it over.

Frank finally breaks their eye contact and quickly types his number into the dial function. It’s a relatively new phone number and he’s suddenly immensely grateful that he’d learned it by heart just two weeks prior. He hands the phone back to TJ with a bashful smile.

“TJ!”, Bud calls from the doorway. The media outside continues to be relentless, but it feels more like background noise now than ever.

“I have to go,” TJ says, but he makes no move to even tear his eyes from Frank’s.

Frank allows himself a little laugh and raises his eyebrows.

This seems to spring TJ into action, as he too laughs a little and shakes his head. “I’ll text you,” he promises animatedly, and then he quickly turns and follows his father into the sea of cameras.

Both Frank and Mary stand rooted to the spot and stare dumbly at the glass doors and ensuing chaos outside. Frank is sporting a dopey grin, but he doesn’t even notice.

“Did you just give your number to Thomas Hammond?”, an incredulous voice calls to their left, and they turn to see Roberta with her hands on her hips. She looks at them with a somewhat scandalized expression.

Frank just shrugs, still grinning. “It’s Mary’s fault.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> et voila!
> 
> this can be complete like so, but if there is a desire for me to do so, i think i could get enough material together to make it a trilogy.
> 
> follow me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/its-tortle) if you are so inclined!
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated and encouraged, so please don't be shy! :)


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